Ahead of the Bundesliga start, the Werkself get Mannschafted

By: Scott | August 6th, 2009

Undoubtedly we’re all giddy as schoolgirls about this weekend’s start to the season, but the longest week supporters have to sit through has also been the quietest on the news front.

Vidal is back from Chile and set for Saturday’s match against a stumbling Mainz side, who are already off to a shaky start. With injuries, ailments and adjusting to life under a new coach all playing a factor in the first matchday, the newly-promoted side shouldn’t pose much of a threat to the Werkself regardless of who Jupp names for the starting eleven.

A collection of prognostications over at pillendreher-blog.de doesn’t show much that could be interpreted as great confidence in our squad from the German footy-centric press. The kindest words come from Spox.de, who think we’ll be back in Europe come season’s end- provided nothing comes along to knock us off track. Rudi Voller “realistically” predicts a finish somewhere between fourth and eighth place, but the majority of predictions have us failing to improve on the mid-table finish of the 08/09 season. Of course, mere words don’t count for much and shouldn’t be of any influence on spirits at BayArena. The same cannot be said for Jogi Löw’s decision not to call up any of the Leverkusen squad for next week’s WC qualifier.

Löw’s reason for not calling up Rolfes is almost valid. Rolfes is just back from injury, after all. But it’s a lot harder to accept his overlooking Kroos, Kießling and Adler. Löw cited a desire to stick to proven players rather than “experiment.” Adler may not have had the gloried season he was looking for, but it’s worth noting that Enke wasn’t entirely without blame in Hannover’s 3-1 loss to Trier (Trier, fer cryin’ out loud!) in last weekend’s Pokal round. And Wiese, well, something about him just rubs me the wrong way. Could be his shifty eyes or the fact he looks like he’s not finished evolving yet. I dunno. Whatever the cause, I’m a lot more at ease when Adler’s between the posts.

I’ll accept, for the time being, that the fact Löw is bringing a more condensed squad into battle, and that it’s only Azerbaijan we’re up against, has prompted the NT coach to not put much thought into the selection process, but, as was rather succinctly stated via Twitter by news5_bayer04, ist doch fucked up!

No sign of bitterness from the all-class cast at Leverkusen and the up-side is that they’ll all be in top form when we host Hoffenheim for our first home match.